•/■ 


Cm 
#53 


mcsbage  ot  tne 
Conf  Pam  12mo  #83 


MESSAGE  OF  THE  PRESIDENT. 


To  the  Congress  of  the  Confederate 
States  of  America  : 

(i  extlemen. 

My  Messages  addressed  to  you  at  the 
commencement  of  the  session,  contained  such  full  infor- 
mation of  the  state  of  the  Confederacy  as  to  render  it  un- 
necessary that  I  should  now  do  more  than  call  your  atten- 
tion to  such  important  facts  as  have  occurred  dining  the 
recess,  and  to  matters  connected  with  the  public  defence. 

I  have  again  to  congratulate  you  on  the  accession  of 
new  members  to  our  Confederation  of  free,  equal  and 
sovereign    States.     Our  loved   and   honored   brethren   of 
North  Carolina  and  Tennessee  have  consummated  tin 
tion,  foreseen  and  provided  for  at  your  last  session,  ; 
have  had  the  gratification  of  announcing,  by  proclama- 
tion, in  conformity  with  law,  that  those  States  wer< 
mitted  into  the  Confederacy. 

The  people  of  Virginia  also,  by  a  majority  previ 
unknown   in  her  history,  have  ratified  the  action  ol 
Convention,  uniting  her  fortunes  with  ours.     The  States 
of  Arkansas,  North  Carolina  and  Virginia  have  like1 
adopted  the  permanent  Constitution  of  the  Confede 
State's,  and  no  doubt  is  entertained  of  its  adoption  by 
Tennessee  at  the  election  to  be  held  early  next  month. 

I  deemed  it  advisable  to  direct  the  removal  of  the  se- 
veral Executive  Departments,  with  their  archives,  to 
city,  to  which  you  had  removed  the  seat  of  govcnui 
immediately   after    your   adjournment.     The    aggressive 
movements  of  the  enemy  required  prompt  and  energetic 
action.     The  accumulation  of  his  forces  on  the  Poto 
sufficiently  demonstrated  that  his  efforts  were  to  be  di- 
rected against  Virginia;  and  from  no  point  could  the  ae- 


cessary  measures  for  her  defence  and  protection  be  so 
efficiently  directed  as  from  her  own  capital. 

The  rapid  progress  of  events  for  the  last  few  weeks 
has  fully  sufficed  to  strip  the  veil  behind  which  the  true 
policy  and  purposes  of  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  had  been  previously  concealed ;  their  odious  fea- 
tures now  stand  fully  revealed :  the  message  of  their 
President  and  the  action  of  their  Congress  during  the 
present  month,  confess  the  intention  of  subjugating  these 
States  by  a  war,  whose  folly  is  equaled  by  its  wicked- 
ness :  a  war  by  which  it  is  impossible  to  attain  the  pro- 
posed result,  whilst  its  dire  calamities,  not  to  be  avoided 
by  us,  will  fall  with  double  severity  on  themselves. 

Commencing  in  March  last,  with  an  affectation  of 
ignoring  the  secession  of  the  seven  States  which  first  organ- 
ized this  government:  persisting  in  April  in  the  idle  and 
absurd  assumption  of  the  existence  of  a  riot  which  was 
to  be  dispersed  by  a  posse  comitatus:  continuing  in  suc- 
cessive months  the  false  representation  that  these  States 
intended  offensive  war,  in  spite  of  the  conclusive  evidence 
to  the  contrary,  furnished  as  well  by  official  action,  as  by 
the  very  basis  on  which  this  government  is  constituted : 
the  President  of  the  United  States  and  his  advisers  suc- 
ceeded in  deceiving  the  people  of  those  States  into  the 
belief  that  the  purpose  of  this  government  was  not  peace 
at  home,  but  conquest  abroad  :  not  the  defence  of  its 
own  liberties,  but  the  subversion  of  those  of  the  people 
of  the  United  States. 

The  series  of  manoeuvres  by  which  this  impression  was 
created:  the  art  with  which  they  were  devised,  and  the 
perfidy  with  which  they  were  executed,  were  already 
known  to  you  ;  but  you  could  scarcely  have  supposed 
that  they  would  be  openly  avowed,  and  their  success 
made  the  subject  of  boast  and  self-laudation  in  an  execu- 
tive message.  Fortunately  for  the  truth  of  history,  how- 
ever, the  President  of  the  United  States  details  with 
minuteness  the  attempt  to  reinforce  Fort  Pickens,  in  vio- 
lation of  an  armistice  of  which  he  confesses  to  have  been 
informed,  but  "only  by  rumors  too  vague  and  uncertain 
to  fix  attention:"  the  hostile  expedition  dispatched  to 
supply  Fort  Sumpter,  admitted  to  have  been  undertaken 
with  a  knowledge  that  its  success  was  impossible:  the 
sending  of  notice  to  the  Governor  of  South  Carolina  of 


his  intention  to  use  force  to  accomplish  his  object:  and 
then  quoting  from  his  Inaugural  Address  the  assurance 
that  there  could  be  no  conflict,  unless  these  States  were 
the  aggressors,  he  proceeds  to  declare  that  his  conduct,  as 
just  related  by  himself,  was  a  performance  of  this  pro- 
mise, "so  free  from  the  power  of  ingenious  sophistry  as 
that  the  world  should  not  be  able  to  misunderstand  it :" 
and  in  defiance  of  his  own  statement  that  he  gave  notice 
of  the  approach  of  a  hostile  fleet,  he  charges  these  States 
with  becoming  the  assailants  of  the  United  States, 
"without  a  gun  in  sight  or  in  expectancy  to  return  their 
fire,  save  only  the  few  in  the  fort."  He  is  indeed  fully 
justified  in  saying  that  the  case  "  is  so  free  from  the 
power  of  ingenious  sophistry,  that  the  world  will  not  be 
able  to  misunderstand  it." 

Under  cover  of  this  unfounded  pretence  that  the  Con- 
federate States  are  the  assailants,  that  high  functionary, 
after  expressing  his  concern  that  some  foreign  nations 
"had  so  shaped  their  action  as  if  they  supposed  the  early 
destruction  of  our  National  Union  was  probable,"  aban- 
dons all  further  disguise,  and  proposes  "  to  make  this 
contest  a  short  and  decisive  one,"  by  placing  at  the  con- 
trol of  the  government  for  the  work,  at  least  400,000 
men,  and  $400,000,000.  The  Congress,  concurring  in 
the  doubt  thus  intimated  as  to  the  sufficiency  of  the 
force  demanded,  has  increased  it  to  half  a  million  of  men. 
These  enormous  preparations  in  men  and  money,  for  the 
conduct  of  a  war  on  a  scale  more  gigantic  than  any  which 
the  new  world  has  ever  witnessed,  is  a  distinct  avowal, 
in  the  eyes  of  civilized  man,  that  the  United  States  are 
engaged  in  a  conflict  with  a  great  and  powerful  nation  : 
they  are  at  last  compelled  to  abandon  the  pretence  of 
being  engaged  in  dispersing  rioters  and  suppressing  in- 
surrections ;  and  are  driven  to  the  acknowledgment  that 
the  ancient  Union  has  been  dissolved.  They  recognize 
the  separate  existence  of  these  Confederate  States,  by  the 
interdiction,  embargo  and  blockade  of  all  commerce  be- 
tween them  and  the  United  States,  not  only  by  sea,  but 
by  land :  not  only  in  ships,  but  in  rail  cars :  not  only 
with  those  who  bear  arms,  but  with  the  entire  popula- 
tion of  the  Confederate  States.  Finally,  they  have  re- 
pudiated the  foolish  conceit  that  the  inhabitants  of  this 
Confederacy  are   still  citizens  of  the  United  States,  for 


they  are  waging  an  indiscriminate  war  upon  them  all, 
with  a  savage  ferocity  unknown  to  modern  civilization. 
In  this  war,  rapine  is  the  rule:  private  residences,  in 
peaceful  rural  retreats,  are  bombarded  and  burnt :  grain 
crops  in  the  field  are  consumed  by  the  torch  :  and  when 
the  torch  is  not  convenient,  careful  labor  is  bestowed  to 
render  complete  the  destruction  of  every  article  of  use  or 
ornament  remaining  in  private  dwellings,  after  their  in- 
habitants have  fled  "from  the  outrages  of  a  brutal  soldiery. 

In  17S1,  Great  Britain,  when  invading  her  revolted 
Colonies,  took  possession  of  the  very  district  of  country 
near  Fortress  Monroe  now  occupied  by  troops  of  the 
United  States.  The  houses  then  inhabited  by  the  peo- 
ple, after  being  respected  and  protected  by  avowed  in- 
vaders, are  now  pillaged  and  destroyed  by  men  who  pre- 
tend that  the  victims  are  their  fellow-citizens. 

Mankind  will  shudder  to  hear  the  tales  of  outrages 
committed  on  defenceless  females  by  soldiers  of  the 
United  States  now  invading  our  homes :  yet  these  out- 
rages are  prompted  by  inflamed  passions  and  the  madness 
of  intoxication.  But  who  shall  depict  the  horror  with 
which  they  will  regard  the  cool  and  deliberate  malignity 
which,  under  pretext  of  suppressing  an  insurrection,  said 
by  themselves  to  be  upheld  by  a  minority  only  of  our 
people,  makes  special  war  on  the  sick,  including  the  wo- 
men and  the  children,  by  carefully  devised  measures  to 
prevent  their  obtaining  the  medicines  necessary  for  their 
cure.  The  sacred  claims  of  humanity,  respected  even 
during  the  fury  of  actual  battle,  by  careful  diversion  of 
attack  from  the  hospitals  containing  wounded  enemies, 
are  outraged  in  cold  blood,  by  a  government  and  people 
that  pretend  to  desire  a  continuance  of  fraternal  con- 
nexions. 

All  these  outrages  must  remain  unavenged,  save  by  the 
universal  reprobation  of  mankind,  in  all  cases  where  the 
actual  perpetrators  of  the  wrongs  escape  capture.  They 
admit  of  no  retaliation.  The  humanity  of  our  people 
would  shrink  instinctively  from  the  bare  idea  of  waging 
a  like  war  upon  the  sick,  the  women  and  the  children  of 
the  enemy. 

But  there  are  other  savage  practices  which  have  been 
resorted  to  by  the  Government  of  the  United  States, 
which  do  admit  of  repression  by  retaliation.     I  have  been 


driven  to  the  necessity  of  enforcing  this  repression.  The 
prisoners  of  war  taken  by  the  enemy  on  board  the  armed 
schooner  Savannah,  sailing  under  our  commission,  were, 
as  I  was  credibly  advised,  treated  like  common  felons : 
put  in  irons:  confined  in  a  jail  usually  appropriated  to 
criminals  of  the  worst  dye,  and  threatened  with  punish- 
ment as  such.  I  had  made  an  application  for  the  ex- 
change of  these  prisoners,  to  the  commanding  officer  of 
the  enemy's  squadron  off  Charleston  harbor,  but  that 
officer  had  already  sent  the  prisoners  to  New  York  when 
the  application  was  made.  I  therefore  deemed  it  my 
duty  to  renew  the  proposal /or  the  exchange,  to  the  con- 
stitutional Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Army  and  Navy 
of  the  United  States,  the  only  officer  having  control  of 
the  prisoners.  To  this  end  I  dispatched  an  officer  to  him, 
under  a  flag  of  truce ;  and  in  making  the  proposal,  I  in- 
formed Preside])!  Lincoln  of  my  resolute  purpose  to  check 
all  barbarities  on  prisoners  of  war,  by  such  severity  ol 
retaliation  on  the  prisoners  held  by  us  as  should  secure 
the  abandonment  of  the  practice. 

This  communication  was  received  and  read  by  the 
officer  in  command  of  the  Army  of  the  United  States, 
and  a  message  was  brought  from  him,  by  the  bearer  of 
my  communication,  that  a  reply  would  be  returned  by 
President  Lincoln  as  soon  as  possible.  I  earnestly  hope 
that  this  promised  reply,  which  has  not  yet  been  received, 
will  convey  the  assurance  that  prisoners  of  war  will  be 
treated,  in  this  unhappy  contest,  with  that  regard  to  hu- 
manity which  has  made  such  conspicuous  progress  in  the 
conduct  of  modern  warfare.  As  a  measure  of  precaution, 
however,  and  until  the  promised  reply  is  received,  I  still 
retain  in  close  custody  some  officers  captured  from  the 
enemy,  whom  it  had  been  my  pleasure  previously  to  en- 
large on  parole,  and  whose  fate  must  necessarily  depend 
on  that  of  the  prisoners  held  by  the  enemy. 

I  append  a  copy  of  my  communication  to  the  President 
and  Commander-in-Chief  ol  the  Army  and  Navy  of  the 
d  States,  and  of  the  report  of  the  officer  charged  to 
deliver  it,  marked  Doe.  A. 

There  are  some  other  passages  in  the  remarkable  paper 
to  which  I  have  directed  vour  attention,  having  reference 
to  the  peculiar  relations  which  exist  between  this  govern- 
ment and  the  States  usually  termed  the  border  slave 
States,  which  cannot  properly  be  withheld  from  notice. 


6 

The  hearts  of  our  people  are  animated  by  sentiments 
towards  the  inhabitants  of  those  States,  which  found  ex- 
pression in  your  enactment  refusing  to  consider  them  as 
enemies,  or  to  authorize  hostilities  against  them.  That  a 
very  large  portion  of  the  people  of  those  States  regard  us 
as  brethren  ;  that  if  unrestrained  by  the  actual  presence 
of  large  armies,  the  subversion  of  civil  authority  and  the 
declaration  of  martial  law,  some  of  them  at  least  would 
joyfully  unite  with  us ;  that  they  are  with  almost  entire 
unanimity  opposed  to  the  prosecution  of  the  war  waged 
against  us  ;  are  facts  of  which  daily  recurring  events  fully 
warrant  the  assertion. 

The  President  of  the  United  States  refuses  to  recognize 
in  these,  our  late  sister  States,  the  right  of  refraining  from 
attack  on  us :  and  justifies  his  refusal  by  the  assertion 
that  the  States  have  no  other  power  "  than  that  reserved 
to  them  in  the  Union  by  the  Constitution,  no  one  of  them 
having  ever  been  a  State  out  of  the  Union." 

This  view  of  the  constitutional  relations  between  the 
States  and  the  General  Government,  is  a  fitting  introduc- 
tion to  another  assertion  of  the  Message,  that  the  Execu- 
tive possesses  the  power  of  suspending  the  writ  of  habeas 
corpus,  and  of  delegating  that  power  to  military  com- 
manders, at  his  discretion :  and  both  these  propositions 
claim  a  respect  equal  to  that  which  is  felt  for  the  addi- 
tional statement  of  opinion  in  the  same  paper,  that  it  is 
proper,  in  order  to  execute  the  laws,  that  "some  single 
law,  made  in  such  extreme  tenderness  of  the  citizens'  li- 
berty, that  practically  it  relieves  more  of  the  guilty  than 
the  innocent,  should,  to  a  very  limited  extent,  be  vio- 
lated." 

We  may  well  rejoice  that  we  have  forever  severed  our 
connection  with  a  government  that  thus  tramples  on  nil 
the  principles  of  constitutional  liberty,  and  with  a  people 
in  whose  presence  such  avowals  could  be  hazarded. 

The  operations  in  the  field  will  be  greatly  extended 
by  reason  of  the  policy  which,  heretofore  secretly  enter- 
tained, is  now  avowed  and  acted  on  by  the  United  States. 
The  forces  hitherto  raised  proved  ample  for  the  defence 
of  the  seven  States  which  originally  organized  the  Con- 
federacy, as  is  evinced  by  the  fact,  that  with  the  excep- 
tion of  three  fortified  islands,  whose  defence  is  efficiently 
aided   by  a  preponderating  naval  force,  the  enemy  has 


been  driven  completely  out  of  those  States ;  and  now,  at 
the  expiration  of  five  months  from  the  formation  of  the 
government,  not  a  single  hostile  foot  presses  their  soil. 
These  forces,  however,  must  necessarily  prove  inadequate 
to  repel  the  invasion  by  half  a  million  of  men,  now  pro- 
posed by  the  enemy ;  and  a  corresponding  increase  in  our 
forces  will  become  necessary.  The  recommendations  for 
the  raising  and  efficient  equipment  of  this  additional 
force,  will  be  contained  in  the  communication  of  the  Se- 
cretary of  War,  to  which  I  need  scarcely  invite  your  ear- 
nest attention. 

In  my  Message  delivered  in  April  last,  I  referred  to  the 
promise  of  abundant  crops,  with  which  we  were  cheered. 
The  grain  crops,  generally,  have  since  been  harvested, 
and  the  yield  has  proven  to  be  the  most  abundant  known 
in  our  history.  Many  believe  the  supply  adequate  to  two 
years'  consumption  of  our  population.  Cotton,  sugar  and 
tobacco,  forming  the  surplus  production  of  our  agricul- 
ture, and  furnishing  the  basis  of  our  commercial  inter- 
changes, present  the  most  cheering  promise ;  and  a  kind 
Providence  has  smiled  on  the  labor  which  extracts  the 
teeming  wealth  of  our  soil  in  all  portions  of  our  Con- 
federacy. 

It  is  the  more  gratifying  to  be  able  to  give  you  this 
assurance,  because  of  the  need  of  a  large  and  increased 
expenditure  in  the  support  of  our  army.  Elevated  and 
purified  by  the  sacred  cans.'  they  maintain,  our  fellow- 
citizens  of  every  condition  of  lite  exhibit  the  most  self- 
sacrificing  devotion:  They  manifest  a  laudable  pride  in 
upholding  their  independence,  unaided  by  any  resources 
other  than  their  own:  and  the  immense  wealth  which  a 
fertile  soil  and  genial  climate  have  accumulated  in  this 
confederacy  of  agriculturists,  could  not  be  more  strik- 
ingly displayed  than  in  the  large  revenues  which,  with 
eager  zeal,  they  have  contributed,  at  the  call  of  their 
country.  In  the  single  article  of  cotton,  the  subscriptions 
to  the  loan  proposed  by  the  government  cannot  fall  short 
of  fifty  millions  of  dollars,  and  will  probably  largely  ex- 
ceed that  sum:  and  scarcely  an  article  required  for  the 
consumption  of  the  army  is  provided  otherwise  than  by 
subscription  to  the  produce  loan  so  happily  devised  by 
your  wisdom.  The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  in  the  re- 
port submitted  to  you  by  him,  will  give  you  the  amplest 
details  connected  with  that  branch  of  the  public  service. 


8 

But  'tis  not  alone  in  their  prompt  pecuniary  contribu- 
tions that  the  noble  race  of  freemen  who  inhabit  these 
States  evince  how  worthy  they  are  of  the  liberties  which 
they  so  well  know  how  to  defend.  In  numbers  far  ex- 
ceeding those  authorized  by  your  laws,  they  have  pressed 
the  tender  of  their  services  against  the  enemy.  Their 
attitude  of  calm  and  sublime  devotion  to  their  country; 
the  cool  and  confident  courage  villi  which  they  are 
already  preparing  to  meet  the  threatened  invasion  in 
whatever  proportions  it  may  assume;  the  assurance  that 
their  sacrifices  and  their  services  will  be  renewed  from 
year  to  year  with  unfaltering  purpose,  until , they  have 
made  good  to  the  uttermost,  their  right  to  self-govern- 
ment ;  the  generous  and  almost  unquestioning  confidence 
which  they  display-in  their  government  during  the  pend- 
ing st niggle;  all  combine  to  present  a  spectacle  such  as 
the  world  has  rarely  if  ever  seen. 

To  speak  of  subjugating  such  a  people,  so  united  and 
determined,  is  to  speak  a  language  incomprehensible  to 
them.  To  resist  attacks  on  their  rights  or  their  liberties 
is  with  them  an  instinct.  Whether  this  war  shall  last 
.  or  three,  or  five  years,  is  a.  problem  they  leave  to  be 
solved  by  the  enemy  alone;  ir  will  last  till  the  enemy 
shall  have  withdrawn  from  their  borders — till  their  politi- 
cal rights,  their  altars  and  their  homes  are  freed  from  in- 
vasion. Then  and  then  only  will  they  rest  from  this 
struggle,  to  enjoy  in  peace  the  blessings  which  with  the 
favor  of  Providence  they  have  secured  by  the  aid  of  their 
own  strong  hearts  and  sturdy  arms. 

JEFFERSON  DAVIS. 
Richmond,  July  20#,  1801. 


Ritchie  &  Dunna*  \nt.  State  Printers. 


peRrmlife* 
PH8.5 


